


Caught In An Explosion

by icewhisper



Series: Holiday Cheer & Tears [5]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-05 17:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16815040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewhisper/pseuds/icewhisper
Summary: He opened his eyes to the house on fire.





	Caught In An Explosion

He opened his eyes to the house on fire.

Had it… How long had it been like that? He didn’t remember playing with his lighter, but it was clutched in a sweaty palm, and the fire was... Shit, it was beautiful. He watched it crawl up a wall and swallow the edge of a picture frame, burning and moving in until the glass cracked. The picture inside caught, curling as it went away to nothing and-

It was a picture of his mom.

Mick blinked, forcing himself to focus through the haze of the fire around him that wanted to pull him back in. His mom’s picture had burned and the remains of the frame crashed down onto the antique dresser below. That was already burning too and, slowly, he realized it was his great-grandmother’s. His grandma had given it to his parents when they got married with some story about passing it down. His mom loved telling that story.

But the dresser was burning and the picture already had burned.

It was his house.

His house was burning.

He didn’t… Had he set it? They had _rules_ about his fires and number one was that he couldn’t do any in the house. He couldn’t even play with his lighter unless he was outside. Having to wait made him twitch, but he had siblings to think about. He couldn’t let them get hurt-

Someone screamed down the hallway and he _ran_. Emma. That was Emma. He could hear the wail of a baby follow after and, _fuck_ , that was Katie. The kids. Where were the fucking _kids_?

He rounded the corner into the twins' room, heart pounding. They were there, all four of them huddled up against Len and… No. Not four of his siblings. Len had Katie perched on his hip. The fourth was Lisa, hair done up in messy pigtails and clinging to her brother’s shirt.

He didn’t remember them coming over. It wasn’t odd for them to catch a bus and slip in during the night. His mom had made Len promise to do it the first time she’d realized where Len’s bruises came from and he’d told her going to the cops wouldn’t help. She’d given them both keys and pretended she didn’t hear Len say she was taking all of the fun out of it if she just let them in.

Mick did not ever plan on telling his mother how many times Len had broken into their house and slipped into his bed with no one being the wiser.

He didn’t remember moving, but he was in the doorway one second and grouped up with everyone else the next. One hand pulled James closer to him as Jack followed his brother like a shadow. The other reached up to touch Len’s cheek. Len didn’t even flinch away from it.

It was bad when Len was already too panicked to care about people seeing them.

“My parents-”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look.” Of course he didn’t. If Len woke up to fire, the first thing he’d do is run to his sister.

But the fact that he hadn’t even heard his parents…

He looked back over his shoulder at the doorway with its orange glow and swallowed. “I gotta get them. They’re probably still asleep.”

“No!” Emma attached herself to his other side, sobbing. The smoke was getting to her. He could hear it in her lungs. He could hear it in all their lungs.

Katie wasn’t awake anymore.

Len was bouncing her, but it wasn’t working. She wasn’t-

“Get them out of here,” he told Len. “I gotta…”

But Len tilted his head at him. “Why?” he asked, curious. “You didn’t bother to get them last time.”

Mick went still.

“You didn’t bother to get any of them last time,” Len continued as he pulled away to lay Katie down on Jack’s bed. The flames came up around it, inching towards his little sister, and he tried to dart forward, but the kids moved in front of him.

“You let us burn, Mickey,” Emma said, face wet and sooty. “Why’d you let us burn?”

“Didn’t you love us anymore?” Jack and James asked in that creepy unison they always did.

“Would you have let me die too?” Lisa joined in. “Are you going to kill me and Lenny too?”

“I don’t,” Mick tried as his breath hitched and he backed away, “what-”

They all smiled at him, something slow and terrifying, and everything exploded.

Mick screamed.

Hands. There were hands and they were touching him – batting out the fire from eating him. Someone was trying to talk to him. He could hear his name over and over like a mantra, but they didn’t _understand_. The house had… God, had it blown up? Where were the kids? Had he killed the little kids? Had he killed everyone?

He had killed everyone, he remembered suddenly as his body went still. He’d been antsy and he should have gone outside like he’d promised his mom, but he’d only made it to the living room before he’d flicked open the lighter. The flame made the rest of the world go away and… He didn’t remember it catching, just remembered blinking and it had gone from the contained flame of his lighter to one of the curtains on fire.

He should have run for them. He should have screamed.

Instead, he stayed rooted to his spot until the fire was too big and even he got scared.

He watched it from the hill until it…

The firemen said the fire had reached that old gas tank his dad kept in the basement. Wood stairs caught and when the fire hit the tank, everything…

They’d never had a chance.

His parents. The kids. Len and Lisa hadn’t been there. Lisa was back at Lewis’ until Len could figure out a way to get custody and Len was with him. It was Len touching him now, a grounding hand between his shoulder blades and long fingers in his hair.

“Lenny…”

“Again?”

Mick nodded, lump lodged in his throat. Yeah, he realized as the fog started to lift and the panic fade away. He’d had the dream again, same as he had been since the fire. “You were there this time. Lisa…”

“We weren’t,” Len told him firmly. “We’re fine.”

Mick nodded and buried his face in Len’s stomach.

The End


End file.
